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My question is about crew pay, we are a Marshall Is. flagged yacht with a mixed crew. How should the (american)owner be paying the crew? Should he have an offshore corp and use that to make up the payroll? Is it legal for him to pay non US crew from a US bank (his) to a US bank Account (crew)? Does this create employment in the US? Thanks, Steve

I rather doubt this situation would create employment in the US. Firstly, you are all clearly employed as international seafarers, and secondly you are not employed on board a US-flagged vessel. I don’t see how the location of a crewmember’s bank makes any difference either, under such circumstances.

It’s unusual for beneficial owners to pay directly, as payment is normally undertaken by the owning company – which in this case would presumably not be in the US. Owning companies help to insulate the beneficial owner from liability as a ship owner, and also insulate the yacht from the owner’s creditors should he find himself in turbulent financial waters.

This is my first year under this pay structure, in the past always been paid as W-2 with all taxes withheld; in 2010

i received 2 forms W-2; one from a US based LLC in which all taxes were withheld on my part and the employer,

the other W-2 also from a US based only shows Wages on box 1 and Fed WH but no SS wgs and no Med wgs or tax withheld. question is: when I file my income tax return this year 2010, do I have to pay SS tax and medicare ??? employer tells me that they gave me 2 W-2's because one is for work during US soil and the other for work underway. anybody knows the rules ?

"During 2001 and until May 5, 2002, the Strucks' business consisted principally of traveling in international and foreign waters to foreign countries on the yacht. They had neither a regular or principal place of business, nor a specific abode in a real and substantial sense during this time. However, while the Court concluded that the Strucks were itinerants, it also found that they had a foreign tax home during the 300-plus days they were physically present in a foreign country during the applicable periods and that they therefor they had a foreign tax home for purposes of the claimed foreign earned income exclusion."